Moreover, neither myself nor my mother (my two sources of food) had yet found an easy way to make a wide variety of food. It has long been my mother's practice, during the school year, to make a large family dinner over the weekend, the leftovers of which provide lunch food for much of the rest of the week. The problem was, then, that because there were fewer things available for me to eat, these dinners became increasingly repetetive from week to week, to the point where I was completely sick of them and would go without eating rather than have the same thing over again. Add to this that there were very few snack foods at that point for me to supplement my normal diet, and I was rather frustrated with my situation, resorting to experimental recipes (a papaya quesadilla is delicious, but a strawberry quesadilla -- not so much) and eating irregularly.
This situation worsened toward the end of the year, when my mother, a third-grade teacher, was busy with report cards and schoolwork and organising her retirement. She had not the time to shop, let alone cook. My father and sister took to bringing home pizzas, and I ate quesadillas wetted liberally with lime juice. As it happened, I also started having one of my bi-monthy sets of dizzy spells at the beginning of June.* Hence, as one might imagine, I was absolutely miserable. It may well be the only time I have ever had a bout of serious depression. I ate so irregularly and so reluctantly during this time that one of my friends worried that I might develop an eating disorder.
It is in this context, then, that I went to Germany at the end of the year to visit some of my mother's old friends and go hunting for obscure and interesting castles. The plane ride over was far from encouraging. My mother had called American Airlines multiple times before our flight to make absolutely sure that the airlines knew that both of us were vegetarian, lactose intolerant, and gluten sensitive. Instead, they gave us one gluten-free meal and one vegetarian. Three quarters of the gluten-free meal was fish, and there were no labels on either meal. Moreover, the pursor, noting the absence of a desert, had slipped an extra cookie into the meal, and the cookie was obviously not gluten-free. But no matter. Hours I arrived in Frankfurt at 7:07 on 07/07/07 on a 707. It would seem that somebody had something in mind for me.
Our first visit was to the parents of my godbrother, Sönke, in the adorable town of Idstein. The very day of our arrival, we discovered what stance Germans take toward gluten intolerance. We went down to a tiny health food store and asked the cashier for help in finding gluten-free foods. Not only did she know what we were talking about, but she was able to point out any number of cookies, müsli, raw baking materials, and other goods. My mother was flabbergasted. Eighteen years ago, she would tell people she was vegetarian and be given potato salad with bacon bits or pizza with anchovies. After a few days, when we struck out on our own, we discovered that virtually any Reformhaus or large grocery store would be able to supply us with everything we needed. But this was only the beginning.
Our first night on our own we passed in a small town east of Hiedelberg which had a lovely old set of ruins about a 2 kilometer hike from the road north of the town. We were in a small hotel, but it had an excellent-looking restaurant, so we decided to see if they had anything on their menu that we could eat. Although there was little food that was vegetarian, we soon found several things that looked promising and inquired about them. The waiter went to consult the chef, came back with a list of questions about what we liked and didn't like, could or could not eat, and told us that the chef was pleased to improvise something for us. We were brought an absolutely gorgeous dish with fried potatoes and all sorts of fresh fruits and vegetables (auberginen, tomati, onions, &c.) and delicate little potato chips of the woven kind, as small and fine as lace. It was quite as delicious a dish as it was appetizing. and it was only the first of many wonderful experiences with German professional cooking.
The woman there made her own olive brine. I usually cannot
stand Greek olives, but those were absolutely amazing.
No matter where we went, this summer, no matter how small the town nor whether we ate at the hotel or at a small local restaurant, everyone we met was willing to bend over backwards to find us something thoroughly enjoyable, delicious, and gluten-free. I gradually learned, based on what the waiters said about the chefs and the way they themself behaved, that it was a matter of some pride to them to be able to provide wonderful food to everyone, no matter what their dietary conditions. I realise that I cannot say the same with any certainty about the people of Germany, for we only stayed with three families, and one in Sweden, but everywhere that we ate out in Germany we had excellent food and careful and considerate service. People were genuinely concerned with whether or not the food was edible and moreover whether it was enjoyable -- a long cry from carefully contrived imitations of the United States. The focus, I realised, was completely different. Where in America, the industry was focused on recreating foods that normally had wheat in them, in Germany they worked to the best advantage with the foods they had available to them. Apart from crackers, müsli, and a few small loaves of bread, we had no need for imitation baked goods. (The müsli was, by the way, absolutely delicious, and I am currently working to recreate it.) Instead, because German grocery stores labelled everything and made everything easily accessible (often in multiple languages), we were easily able to find food that was free of gluten at virtually any food store. Normal foods. Not something that you had to go look for at a separate health-food section. Not a special diet for sickly people. Not something that no one has ever heard of before. And that attitude has made all the difference, from a traveller's perspective.
* I have had Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) since the age of twelve, so when I move quickly or change position, my heart speeds up and does not stop, so my blood pressure drops and I begin to faint without ever actually fainting. For some reason, this occurs in two-month cycles.
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